


Lost

by plumandfinch



Category: Call the Midwife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumandfinch/pseuds/plumandfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shelagh is eleven and she is furious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost

Shelagh is eleven and she is furious. 

It was all Mrs. McCleary and her mention of Christmas breads. _Foolish_ , Shelagh thinks. “Foolish.” She’s surprised she said it out loud, it startles her, but the word trips past her lips again, this time a ragged bellow into the trees. She had turned on her heel and banged out of the cozy kitchen, no patience for coat or scarf and what had started as a stomp had grown into a run until she was away and alone. She shivered, still too angry to care about the cold. Foolish Mrs. McCleary. No, _stupid_ Mrs. McCleary - that was much worse. Mum had hated that word and the only time she’d ever had her mouth cleaned out with soap was when she’d called Tommy Barridge from down the lane stupid at the ripe old age of five. Well, he had been and so too, she thinks, had Mrs. McCleary.

The woods creak and the old trees groan in the late afternoon wind. She pulls her cardigan sleeves down over her hands and keeps walking, picking her way over fallen tree trunks and rocks. Da had insisted that they get a woman in from the village a day or two a week to help. His cough had gotten much worse in the fall and he wanted her to learn things. ‘Woman things’ he had called them. She had been unsure from the start but the last straw had been today. They didn’t do Christmas, she and Da, and everyone knew it. Simple things, yes, they went to church and listened to the music on the wireless. He had been known to leave a small gift for her, while she was sleeping but that was the extent. The whole village knew it, for heaven’s sake, except apparently for stupid, _stupid_ Mrs. McCleary. She feels the anger rise up again and her icy hands make sharp fists in their sleeves. The echo of the bells from the steeple swing through the darkening air and it makes her turn stock still. She has to go back. When she gets to the edge of the wood, she scrubs the tears away with her fists, sets her jaw, and starts for home. 


End file.
